Tagged: mine safety

The Kentucky Mine Safety Review Commission has ruled that a coal miner who reported unsafe conditions won’t be punished for breaking the law.

An eastern Kentucky coal miner who reported unsafe work conditions is now facing sanctions by the state.

Mackie Bailey is a longtime roof bolting machine operator who worked at Manalapan Mining’s P-1 mine in Harlan County. For several weeks, Bailey says he and other miners had been working without a required safety device called the Automated Temporary Roof Support (ATRS), which is supposed to brace against the roof of the mine and protect miners from a potential roof collapse.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration is reporting increases in the number of miners who have filed discrimination complaints after reporting safety violations.

Federal law protects miners who report unsafe working conditions to employers, or refuse to work until the problem is fixed. But Assistant Secretary of Labor Joe Main says that after the explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia two years ago, it was obvious many miners were afraid to exercise their rights.

An official with an eastern Kentucky coal mining company has pleaded guilty to federal charges that he put miners at risk.

Coal mine foremen are required to note hazardous conditions in inspection reports, and then correct them. Manalapan Mining Company shift foreman Bryant Massingale acknowledged that he didn’t do this in federal court on Thursday.

Massingale worked at the company's P-1 mine in Harlan County. A grand jury charged the company and three officials with exposing miners to the risk of injury or death by violating safety rules in June 2011.

Nineteen miners died in the first half of 2012, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration’s mid-year summary.

Ten of those deaths were in coal mines (the rest were in metal or nonmetal mines). And five of them were in Kentucky—four of them in coal mines, and one in a limestone mine.

According to the release from MSHA: